• Tympan

    Origin

    From Medieval Latin tympanum.

    Full definition of tympan

    Noun

    tympan

    (plural tympans)
    1. a piece of cloth padding placed under the platen of a letterpress to distribute the pressure on the sheet being printed
    2. (musical instruments) the stretched membrane of a drum; a percussion instrument consisting of a hollow cylinder with such a membrane at each end
    3. (architecture) a tympanum----
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